A color image is formed by exposing a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material to light and then treating the light-sensitive material in a color development process in which an oxidized aromatic primary amine color developing agent is reacted with a dye-forming coupler (this term will sometimes be referred to simply as `coupler`) so as to form a dye.
Generally, to the above-mentioned photographic process, a color reproduction method using a color subtraction technique is applied, so that color images in yellow, magenta and cyan may be formed, respectively.
As for the cyan color image dye-forming couplers, phenols or naphthols have popularly been used so far.
From the viewpoint of color reproduction, however, cyan images obtained from phenols or naphthols have had serious problems. Namely, there have been the poor sharpness of spectral absorption on the short wavelength side as well as an undesirable absorption, i.e., an irregular absorption, in green spectral region. The present situation is that, with a negative light-sensitive material, therefore, it cannot help masking or taking some measure to remedy the irregular absorption: and with a paper light-sensitive material, there have not been any remedying measures, but the color reproducibility thereof has considerably been worsened.
With dye images obtained from phenols and naphthols having so far been used, there have still been several unsolved problems in their preservability. For example, the dye images obtained from 2-acylaminophenol cyan coupler described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,367,531 and 2,423,730 are generally poor in fastness against heat; the dye images obtained from 2,5-diacylaminophenol cyan coupler described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,369,929 and 2,772,162 are generally poor in fastness against light; and dye images obtained from 1-hydroxy-2-naphthamide cyan coupler are generally poor in fastness against both light and heat. They have therefore been unsatisfactory.
Also, with 2,5-diacylaminophenol cyan couplers described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,122,369, Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter called Japanese patent O.P.I. Publication) Nos. 155538-1982 and 157246-1982, and so forth, and 2,5-diacylamino phenol cyan coupler having a hydroxy group in the ballast portion thereof described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,880,661, each of them has still been unable to reach a satisfactory level, from the viewpoints of the fastness against light and heat and yellow-stain prevention.
Whereas, the present inventors have studies variously on the above-mentioned problems. Resultingly, they have discovered that a substance having a hydrogen-bondable group in the pyrazolotriazole nucleus thereof may be able to give desired results, so that they have accomplished this invention.